Pal I fly with has gone through various planes and drifts back to his beloved Cessna's .. he now has 9 Cessna's in various sizes from parksize electric up to 22cc Gas powered.
He had a brainstorm one day and bought a 70mm EDf F16 from Germany ... retracts .. the works. What a dog !! It was an absolute pig and literally hung in the air scrabbling for flight. It had it's eventual demise and it was then used as a scrap bits supply bed for other models.

He ripped out the 70mm EDF and fitted it to a Multiplex ... he ripped of the vector thrust gear ... fitted it to the Multiplex. Servos ... you name it - all came out.
The biggest problem was the slicing of pieces of the elevators, being aerofoil section to fit to Multiplex after crashing.

A really sorry bag of bits was placed in my hands .. after I asked to see if could do something with it. He literally dared me into it.

Well ... first I curved 6mm depron and sheeted in the retract areas ... then started cutting out splits / gouges more square to scarf in more depron ... in layers in some areas.

Tail extension just below rudder was missing ... depron to the rescue ...

Those dreaded elevator ends sliced off - yes - you guessed - depron ! 2 sheet pieces of 6mm sandwiched and pinned to elevator ends and then sanded to shape.

Next came the missing tail cone ... now the F16 is quite disctinctive with that fluted black affair ... so he had given me the tail cone of the Multiplex after fitting bthe vector unit ... this was too small an outside diameter but ID was correct at 70mm. es - again depron to the rescue .. in strips glued to the outside of the cone to produce the fluted look .. which also built it up to fair in with fuselage.

Photos ? ............. here ye go ...

Today fitted cone .. and you can see the elevator pieces / tail bits etc.

Here's the ripped out fuselage runs where cables were ..

I've decided to split the controls and have dedicated servo for each ..

Cockpit base is proving a bit hard to fashion, but I'll get there ...

General underside ...

General topside ..

Starting to look like an F16 ... I will of course leave of retracts - it will be a belly lander / launcher job.
Colour scheme will be changed to more vivid scheme to be visible in sky ...

Here's some data :

Length overall : 1.22m, Wingspan : 0.78m

Anyone identify the model make ? I know it wasn't cheap when he bought it ...

He really stripped it before giving it to you, right down to the servo extensions! Do you have a fan for it?
BTW, is that the short nosed version of the ME109 in the background?

The doubler rod links for taileron / aileron set-up were still fitted - but I removed them as I wanted to fit separate servos for each surface. The rods seemed pretty thin !

The channels along the sides are where he ripped the servo leads out that run all way back to the taileron servos.

I've now used telephone cable to splice the aileron / elevator servos together as a Y lead each side.

That means I can then adjust the mix of elevator / aileron as well as having both sets give me good control over what is a large model. Then I fitted 3mm depron over top of those channels to regain form.

The next job is to extend the motor leads with stiff copper wire to mount the ESC at back of cockpit area or just inside duct to keep cool. I use stiff copper wire for this sort of job as it can be bent / formed to shape of area it's in. Tack it in a few places with some hot melt and it's done. It has minimal voltage drop ...

Yes - I have the Hobby King 70mm unit that is eaxct copy of the original even to the side tab mounts. It has the Turnigy 2800kv motor as recc'd fitted. Thrust is very good in the quick test run I gave it ...

The Me109 ..... that's a Lanyu ME109 that is having a new front fuselage made ... it became known as the banana ... so thought it time to cut of the old original crashed 50x front and give her a new lease of life.

Had a really great session this evening ... flew the two T45's ... and my old friend the Cessna ...

This one will get my Red White Blue treatment ... sort of variation on the White Display F16's of USA ...

The model as is now is two tone grey with low-vis Stars / stripes.... as of the 188th Fighter Wing. Whej my pal flew her on maiden ... it was not a good colour scheme for keeping tabs on !!

I will overpaint her in base white for topsides and pale blue under. Then apply red and blue schemes on top. The Stars and Bars will be full colour jobs to do justice to her.
As to tail graphics ... I'll be sad to lose the wild boar on each side of fin ... maybe I can see it through the white ? then colour it out again ... lets see.

Anyway - I intend to make her more colourful as a display machine rather than a war bird.

Fans in ..... and it's a permanent arrangement as there's no screw mounts in the foam etc.

I've epoxied the edf tabs to the fuselage and then the hatch down on to trap securely. I think with the power this thing is supposed to have - it's probably safest bet.

The hatch and joints will be taped up to seal and then painted over.

60A ESC is right at back of cockpit with solid 0.8mm copper wire back to the motor. ESC gets a blast of air via a slot from the air duct ...

So it's just a matter of sealing up holes / areas ... connect servo plugs to the telephone cables ... tape down the Rx and fit a battery !!

I have to admit that I could have done a better job ... but she still looks a lot better than the day she arrived at my house !!

Fingers crossed that she flies !! I did make one modification ... I know that many F16 models have a touch of up elevator as neutral .. so to keep surfaces as straight as possible I fixed the tail cone with just 1 - 2 degrees upthrust ... just enough that the eye can detect it if you look for it ! It's probably a bad decision !!

Calculated run time to zero being 3000/1000/36*60 = 5 minutes on above batterys.

I am NOT happy !! The thrust level is way down to what I believe is needed for this bird.

I have some sealing up of duct where hatches / pieces have been scarfed in for repairs - but that will likely only add another few grams to the total. It looks like it will need 5S and serious thought how to sort.
The watts figure is more like my smaller EDF's ...

That thrust is right where I expected it to be. You will always loose some thrust when the fan is put in the duct and as this model has a quite small outlet the losses are going to be high.

800g should be enough to fly but it wont be a rocket by any means, and i'd guess it will need a good throw to get it going. Also bear in mind that 800g is with a fresh battery, the thrust once the battery starts to run down is going to be below 700g which is going to be quite marginal. Give it a try and see how well it goes. If you do need more thrust would the fan and motor cope with a 5s battery or can you put in a higher kv motor, the one you are running always looked a bit low on kv for 4s operation in a 70mm EDF IMHO.

That thrust is right where I expected it to be. You will always loose some thrust when the fan is put in the duct and as this model has a quite small outlet the losses are going to be high.

800g should be enough to fly but it wont be a rocket by any means, and i'd guess it will need a good throw to get it going. Also bear in mind that 800g is with a fresh battery, the thrust once the battery starts to run down is going to be below 700g which is going to be quite marginal. Give it a try and see how well it goes. If you do need more thrust would the fan and motor cope with a 5s battery or can you put in a higher kv motor, the one you are running always looked a bit low on kv for 4s operation in a 70mm EDF IMHO.

Dissapointed I am ... having had over 1.2kg thrust from the unit .. to then drop back to 800gr ... is a lot. I expected to be around the 900 - 1000gr mark.
The re-build has meant that I have had to glue the EDF unit tabs down and also the access hatch to secure all in place ... any mounts / fixings from original are missing. To change anything now means cutting her open, something that I will leave as last resort.... but not discounted.

The motor is the one that various other listings and in reviews fits that EDF unit. None of them are as low on thrust as mine !

There's always the chance that the LiPo's are poor as they have sat around all the time the F16 was unused .. my pal gave me them with the model. I have nothing I can really test them with similar .....

The motor is not designed for a 5S ... but some have done it. The fan unit is not a problem - I believe that can take it. The problem is finding a 5S that doesn't untip the scales on CoG !! As we know there's the trade off of extra voltage, but extra weight and extra amps.

Marginal flight is not in my book !! My 50mm EDF is 1.22 to 1 ratio on 4S, 0.93 to 1 on 3S. Yes - she's a pocket rocket !!

The model as supplied ex German shop to my pal came with a 2800kv motor, 4S 3000 LiPo, 40A ESC ....

I have just ordered 5S 3000 LiPo to put in her ... as test - if it survives and flies well - I shall invest in more LiPo's ... possibly a new airframe as this needs serious work to get back to concourse ! I have rebuilt to fly not win medals !! I shall fit UBEC to counter the increased cell count and save my ESC from fighting it to power the Rx ....

Now comes the modifications to the catapult ramp system I have. The weight is not a problem as she sits on it fine. But the rails sit right on the servo arms / surface horns.
I'm considering just a flat plate ramp ..... with hinged front and back panels ... There would need to be a cut out at bottom of the verticals to allow the trigger line to pass through to rear trigger ... but means I could have my normal rails for Parkjet / other edf's .... and alongside the ramp for F16..... or just make a flat plate to sit on the rails ?

First I'll try the plate on the rails ... if that's not so good - then a separate ramp.

I'm hoping a 5S will give me another 150 - 200gr if lucky. I'm aiming for a ratio of about 0.75 to 1 or greater.

But it's a case of maybes .... I don't know if the ol'girl will fly yet ! It's a hefty size for hand launching. 1.3m long, 0.8m wide.

I've yet to figure out the hook placement as that intake sits right where I want it. I don't want to put the hook ahead of that as the flag may get sucked in ... I don't want to put too far back as then she'll pitch up badly when tension comes on. I'm wondering if I can set a hook into the intake just behind the lip .. that is level with the surrounding surface. The model will be sitting on that underside duct on a flat plate ramp for catapult launches.

I was not surprised when the motor gave notice it was in pain !! So decided to cut throttle and let her land ...

I may be lucky and have saved the motor ... will cut open the duct and see if I can remove that accursed rear cone that stops cooling air through the windings. If not then I need to find a better motor that can take the 5S.....

Very pleased though that what was a pretty sorry model has been given a new lease of life ... if I can get enough power out of her - I may even stick some wheels on her to save that back-breaking hand launch !!

Congrats on the maiden! She looks great. Looks like plenty of power, as that launch would have done in a lesser plane! Did you use an exhaust tube of the right exhaust area and all that to get the most thrust out of her?

Congrats on the maiden! She looks great. Looks like plenty of power, as that launch would have done in a lesser plane! Did you use an exhaust tube of the right exhaust area and all that to get the most thrust out of her?

The duct is as is except for the rear black nozzle - that's of a Multiplex Twister 70mm. just added the fluting to it by strips of depron glued on.

I agree that the launch was a little too steep - but as you say - the power kept her going ... in fact literally she stands on her tail.

That pass straight after launch while still trying to trim her gives doppler of 107.9kph .... a not bad figure considering I was not dialed in with trim etc.
Once I get her sorted - I expect a little bit more than that ...